


you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt (and again when your head goes through the windshield)

by piratemoggy



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Other, Supernatural AU - Freeform, brothers on a hotel bed, please dig me up and burn me, some spoopy obviously, why have i put so much thought into this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratemoggy/pseuds/piratemoggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Christian's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days."</p><p>Saving people, driving things: the family business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt (and again when your head goes through the windshield)

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES!  
> -HUGE thanks to valentineskid for cheerleading me through this/putting up with me sending loads of nonsense screaming at her  
> -Title is from Seventy Times 7 by Brand New, aka Dan's favourite totally inappropriate song for driving playlists  
> -This is set a little in the future, in a world where Dany's a NASCAR driver after F1 because the US and muscle cars  
> -Which is why he lives in North Carolina  
> -Dan's car is the magnificently hot pink Chevy Monte Carlo lowrider he's been Instagramming himself in  
> -I noped out of Supernatural on the first episode of Season 4 and know everything after that from gifsets so like don't @ me about any details it's a friggin AU crackfic let me die in peace  
> -On the other hand, my ghost research has been meticulous; Lydia's Bridge is a "real" ghost story from the Jamestown area, there's a link to a page about it in the end notes  
> -The locations are all real and I've tried to make the driving realistically timed, if nothing else - but I've never been to NC so please don't kill me if it's not actually very accurate  
> -Quite a few gory/spoopy mentions because that's it, that's the show  
> -Dan is singing along to 'Jude Law And A Semester Abroad' by Brand New in the car  
> -Full tracklist at the end  
> -I enjoyed this way too much, I hope someone else does too

 

“What,” he says eloquently, “the entire fuck?”

“Err, hi?” Dan is smiling at him, the particular sort of shit-eating grin he has for stressful situations. Which this is. 

Dany considers putting down the crowbar he’s got a fighting grip on, having crept down the stairs to find out which fucker was trying to break in at 4am. Two years of sleeping relatively peacefully haven’t totally deadened the ability to suddenly be fully awake and ready to kill. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Dan?” There’s a knot of hurt rising in Dany’s chest; no contact, all that time. If he left, he left - and he’d hardly had much choice in the matter. And then the fucker turns up at his fucking  _ door  _ and he’d been actually pretty happy, recently. Winning NASCAR was a hell of a lot better than being unwelcome in Formula 1; who knew?

“I need your help.” Dan’s still grinning because of course he fucking is and that only makes Dany more suspicious - there’s a bit of a rictus element to it, even if his former -  _ ouch - _ teammate’s voice is even. 

“No. You know how it was - I’m out.” And Dany’s been doing  _ fine  _ actually. Better than fine. He hasn’t had to wake up in the middle of the night sweating, swindle a sponsorship deal or even stab and salt anything for well over eighteen months. It’s been restful, normal. The sort of thing a 23-year-old should do. He’s even had sex with girls who don’t have protection charms round their beds. 

“I know. But Christian’s been gone for a few days and I need your help to find him.” And that’s enough to trigger Dany’s anger, finally, shoving Dan up against the wall.

“Why the  _ fuck  _ would I care about that? He made himself clear.” He can hear himself breathing harshly and - for fuck’s sake - he’s not felt this suddenly destabilised and shitty since he got shot of this whole business.

Dan’s grin has finally gone - he’s not fighting Dany, staring him soberly in the eye, “Christian’s  _ on a hunting trip  _ and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”

Of-fucking-course. Dany gives Dan another shove, then steps back. “Why don’t you get  _ Max  _ to help you?”

“Because I need the best hunter I know, Dany. I can’t do this alone.” Dan visibly swallows, “It’s not like him - he doesn’t disappear like this since… You know.”

“ _ Since you got kicked out”  _ is the unspoken ending to Dan’s sentence and Dany feels something old twist in his stomach, like scar tissue. Ugh, he’d been  _ done  _ with this shit. 

But Dan shouldn’t even be in the States. He’s been studiously not following the Formula 1 calendar but he’d been unable to avoid noticing the circus had showed up in Austin a few months ago. Which means something’s up - even if it’s the break he ought to be down hunting vampires in Tazmania or something, Christian off somewhere taking potshots at Earls too posh to stay dead.

“It’s one trip, Dany.  _ Please. _ ” Dan should know better than to ask him. Which means he didn’t want to, which means he really has  _ had  _ to. Dany’s still fucking furious with them all - he’s not sure he’s ever going to stop being. 

His teens were robbed from him in a blur of races, rooftop stakeouts, sloshing through flooded basements and nearly getting killed by cars or banshees twice a fucking week, only to drop him like a shell case when they’d found some  _ better  _ ammo. Someone who didn’t ask difficult questions about whether killing things for existing was saving anyone, whether recruiting  _ children  _ to do this was right. 

It’s fucked up. He’s not getting back into it. 

“One trip - but I have to be back by Monday, I’ve got race prep.” God so fucking help him, if there is one.

Dan genuinely grins, then “Sure, mate.” He pats Dany on the shoulder, as the Russian tries to control a flinch away “Congrats on the win, by the way.”

Dany’s eyes slide to the trophy, to the Monster Energy logo on the team shirt wrapped round it - the most satisfying middle finger salute he could have ever mustered. “Thanks.”

He sighs, finally puts the crowbar down and dusts his hands off on his pyjamas - “Let me go get dressed. The kettle’s on the stove, there’s coffee in the cupboard.” He doesn’t miss this, this middle-of-the-night, sixteenth-cup-of-instant-black-caffeine-barely-warming-a-graveyard-frozen-gut feeling. But he does  _ know  _ it and sometimes you can get homesick for places you don’t want to live.

“Bring knives!” Dan calls out at him up the stairs and Dany  _ hates  _ himself for the way his heart races just a little bit.

\---------

_ “Tell all the English boys you meet! About the American boy back in the States! The American boy you used to date - who would do aaanythiiing youuu saaaay!” _

“Jesus  _ christ, _ Dan - I said I’d help you, not submit to torture.” Dany’s staring incredulously at the Australian - they’ve been in the car for forty five minutes, heading out of Chapel Hill towards Greenboro, on their way to Jamestown and Dan’s been singing incessantly as they speed down the now-familiar-to-him highway. 

Being back in Dan’s car is familiar, North Carolina is familiar but the two mixing is disjointed, totally strange. The idea that Christian’s been crawling round in the bushes with a shotgun full of salt that  _ close  _ to his new life unnerves him; the US barely  _ has  _ ghosts, something’s old if it’s been around for 50 years here.

“Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole, mate” Dan winks at him, looking far too happy for all this shit, like he’s delighted to be back to being complained at by Dany. 

It is weird-comfortable. Way too comfortable, really - they’ve got truck stop coffees that lesser stomachs would struggle not to reject sitting in the well of the Monte Carlo’s dash, Dan’s sprawled with his right arm resting on the window, as always, curls ruffled by the hot night breeze as they drive. 

Dany’s instinctively curled himself into a shape he doesn’t actually quite fit, anymore - NASCAR’s let him bulk up a lot more than the last time he was in this car, as a sleep-deprived and skinny-on-everything-especially-emotions F1 driver. He tries not to wonder too much about how Max sits in it, in  _ his seat,  _ no matter how long it’s been.

It should be awkward but somehow the cushioning bends to him, like it knows his form too well to reject him, his right knee brought up to almost hug to himself, sneakered foot on the hot pink leather. “I can’t fucking believe you haven’t had this repainted.”

Dan strokes the steering wheel “He does  _ not  _ mean that, baby.”

Dany snorts, makes a furtive dive to turn down the radio, gets his hand slapped by Dan and suddenly they’re elbowing each other the way they always did. It’s annoying - he hasn’t missed this, who the fuck would? But maybe he also has missed the easy rhythm of coexisting with Dan, the way they know each other like brothers.  

“I’ve got his hotel address, he sent it to - to us, before he left. In the glovebox.” Dany almost feels like saying  _ “You can mention it, I kind of really know it happened”  _ but he does sort of appreciate it. If they have to do this again, it’s somehow easier to just pretend none of the other stuff’s happened since. Like they can just pick up an alternate timeline.

Dany fumbles the glovebox open, immediately hitting his knees with a torch, a (fortunately, sheathed) hunting knife, a battered A to Z of London, of all the places and half-empty bottle of methylated spirit. He holds the bottle up at Dan questioningly, “Been hitting the hard stuff?”

Dan grimaces, “Had to clean some  _ nasty  _ shit up recently.” Dany can’t help a slight wince - he’s been drenched in ectoplasm, blood, every form of gore and grime imaginable but sometimes there are the ones that just leave  _ wrong  _ stuff everywhere. As quietly as he’s been sleeping lately, he still occasionally dreams about the man he’d seen drowned from the inside - black tar-goop seeping out of his nose and mouth. It wasn’t something a 15 year old should have to see, let alone pump a shotgun full of rock salt and copper into.

He covers the wince with more glovebox fumbling until he hits a battered notebook, used more as a scrapbook for hundreds of post-it notes than its original purpose. He flicks it open and scans through the pages, looking for something likely -  _ oh.  _ The J H Adams - of course, of fucking  _ course  _ Christian would be staying in the most expensive place he could find, scamming it through some sponsored hospitality agreement. Although Dany took some weird local pride in suspecting it still fell short of Christian’s standards in bath towel fluffiness.

“Take the 70, it’s faster.” He tries not to let the panic rise that they’re  _ in his home _ . That he thought he’d got away from all this shit, here.

\-------

No one even questions why they need an additional key for Christian’s room at 5:30 in the morning. Dan’s team ID would probably have been persuasive but Dany’s slightly pleased to say being the NASCAR champion gives you a little license to make weird demands, round here. 

They push the door open gingerly, disturbing a line of salt. Not a recreational trip, then. Dany had half been hoping Christian had just decided to scare the shit out of Dan for one of his usual, crappy reasons - maybe even to torment Dany himself, somehow. That the smug bastard would just be sitting there when they walked in. 

The room is a mess, by Christian’s standards - like he’d left in a hurry. Or wanted them to find things, of course - there was never any point taking Christian at face value, even his abandoned hotel room. 

Dan flicks on the light, just behind him and the noise makes them both start slightly - more of a crack than a click, old-fashioned lamp and ceiling fan easing to life, the filament a dim glow at first. 

Dany moves further into the room, stepping over taped protection sigils - a bit more than he’d expect for whatever’s out here. Dany hasn’t been looking for spooky happenings but if some of the shit he’s seen in Europe and Asia had kicked off, it would have been unavoidable - he’d always told himself he’d save lives, if he needed to. It had never come up.

But these are heavy-duty symbols, for protection against demons. He suppresses a shiver - he really needs not to have to deal with demons, maybe Christian’s just scaring them. A flutter to his left distracts him and he moves over to the table, notebook pages and newspaper clippings rustling in the ceiling fan’s breeze.

“This looks… serious.” Dan sounds very dubious, holding up  _ something  _ \- cat’s paw, maybe - enclosed in wire.

“Or atmospheric.” Dany sighs, “He could be fucking with you, Dan.”

Dan only hums in reply, clearly unwilling to go down this conversational avenue. There is something creepy about the room - maybe just the skin-crawling sensation of being this close to Christian again, maybe a sense of foreboding that literally no excursion into this world has turned out not to have some massively bad consequences to bite him on the arse later.

Looking over the papers, Dany can’t see anything that explains the protective measures. He’s more and more convinced this is a trap - which means the relief that highway abductions seem to be the only thing Christian’s chasing here is extremely muted. People disappear all the time down US back roads, usually because they want to. You find an abandoned car and 10 days later it comes out the guy was skipping bail or bankruptcy or - sadly, too often - medical bills. Sometimes they’re good enough at it the family even get the life insurance. It’s not enough of an eyebrow-raiser to investigate.

“Who’s Lydia Bridge?” Dan is looking at something taped to the wall - a roughly drawn map, definitely not Christian’s handwriting so maybe someone he’d spoken to. 

“How should I know? The towns aren’t  _ that  _ small.” He picks up Christian’s notes, scooping everything into the notebook and moves over to stand next to Dan. He’s sure he used to be shorter than the Australian, feeling like he’s looming as he leans forward to squint at the scribbled map.

“Oh - not a person,  _ Lydia’s Bridge.  _ It’s near Jamestown, no idea what he wants from it.” Dan  _ ‘hmm’s  _ at him, steps back slightly so he’s almost-but-not-quite leaning against Dany’s chest, an odd echo of the way they used to stand with Dan a reassuring presence at his back. 

He almost wants to ask Dan about what’s happened since he’s been gone, why Dan’s out here seemingly on his own, where Max is, whether Pierre’s ok, why Christian’s jetting off with no more than a hotel address to go off. But he’s back in the car on Monday - this is a one-off, it doesn’t need context. 

_ Unless it does, because this is some fucked up shit you’re being pulled back into.  _ Dany shushes the internal commentary, he’s got a more pressing problem on his hands if he’s going to work out what level of crap is being pulled here and make it back in time to do something he actually enjoys for once in his fucking life.

Dan ‘ _ hmm’ _ s again, takes himself away from the wall and flops down on the bed. Dany raises an eyebrow at him and Dan just huffs at him, “I drove all night, dude - even I need a couple of hours shut-eye before I can work this out.”

Dany huffs right back at him but he does have a point - and they’re not likely to find somewhere better-protected than this. The room looks ridiculous; bright, clean decorating covered over with lines of salt and iron and copper wires, electrical tape spiderwebbing the floor with sigils. Dan pats the bed next to him and Dany reluctantly gives in, wanders over.

He half-props himself against the ludicrous, swirly bedstead until Dan grumps at him enough to make him lie down properly, their backs not quite touching as they curl away from each other - the same way they always slept, so they’re facing each side. 

“Thank you for coming with me. I really am sorry to do this, mate.”

Dany sighs - this is dangerously close to having a conversation about feelings, on a hotel bed and he’s not willing to engage with  _ anything  _ on that level. “Goodnight, Dan.”

“‘Night, mate.” The Australian sounds warm and  _ incredibly  _ tired, like having Dany around is the first time he’s relaxed in awhile. Something guilty plays unfairly at the back of Dany’s brain - it’s not like he had a  _ choice  _ about any of it. 

\-------

Dany wakes up at 10:36am, panicking for the first time in ages. It takes him a moment to realise why, exactly. Then he sees the sigils on the floor, the weird bedstead and - when he rolls over - fucking  _ Dan.  _ Right, fine - this had happened. Was happening.

“Unnh,” Oh good, they still have the synchronised waking thing. Dany’s mouth tastes of death and coffee and he wants to die - he’d got used to getting a lot more sleep with a lot less emotional hell.

“Wazztime?” 

“Gone ten. We should… whatever.” Dany doesn’t really want to say ‘investigate’ because that puts too official a word on this shit. Christ, how is this happening again?

“Mmph, yeah.” Dan’s hair is ruffled almost comedically, which means Dany’s must be standing on end. He runs his fingers through it in some weak attempt at pacification that probably does almost nothing. “Hey, is you being famous going to be a problem?”

Dany frowns at him. Yes, it probably is - he’s kind of never thought of himself as more famous than Dan, other than in -  _ ouch - _ Russia but this is very much his home turf now, which is a strange feeling. Dan was always the assured one, before. The one more comfortable in his surroundings, who knew what he was doing whether it was hunting or racing and Dany was the one flailing around trying to catch up. 

“Might be useful, you never know. It was alright in Europe, before.” And this is  _ exactly  _ the sort of conversational avenue he’s so very not interested in going down. “Shit diner breakfast?”

“God yeah,” Dan briefly looks like a man who hasn’t eaten for days - which is probably untrue, no matter how skinny he is. He rolls away from Dany, off the bed and into his trainers.

“Shoes off? On a hunt?” Either Christian’s standards were lapsing or Dany had misremembered a lot. Dan just gestures at the wards around the room and, ok, fair point but Dany was assuming that was just an indicator of exactly what scale of badness might be waiting to nibble on his toes. 

Half an hour later, they’re in Becky & Mary’s with two spam, egg and grits. Dany’s 900% sure this is not in Dan’s nutritional plan - it’s not exactly in his, either but when in NASCAR, get used to soul food. They had at least skipped the offer of additional bacon in favour of endless refills of filter black coffee.

Dany’s spread the clippings and notebook over the table, alongside the sketch map that Dan had pocketed. It doesn’t make much sense - two of the disappearances are ten years ago and Dany can make a good guess about why someone was disappearing as the sub-prime bubble burst. Half the houses on his road were still empty, even with the university in town - built, bought and then emptied by a financial system that had no relation to  _ lives  _ and absolute control over them. 

“These are pointless - probably escaping the car loan, poor fuckers.” Dan gives him a quizzical look and Dany can’t stop the harsh tone seeping into his voice, “It’s not exactly Monaco.”

Dan winces, looks guilty - like he feels bad for Dany living here. Which he shouldn’t - Monaco, with its protective harbour and the rock-sigil-carved mountains behind, has its advantages if you’re fine with being ruled by  _ actual  _ vampires. 

He really likes North Carolina, to his slight surprise. His own situation was radically different but there was something deeply, selfishly soothing about being in the heart of a region fucked over and somehow not bitter about it. He’d found himself making someone a comfort casserole _twice_ now, although there was no chance he was telling Dan that

“Look - I don’t… I don’t think Christian’s chasing anything, here.” Looking at things in the light of day, with a stomachful of grits and a lack of his old boss’ creepy shit around him this looked, smelt and  _ felt  _ more and more like bullshit, “I don’t get it.”

Dan pulls a face, sips at his coffee - he’s been uncharacteristically quiet since they woke up, even let Dany drive them to the diner. Dany knows Dan isn’t oblivious - this is  _ his  _ world, after all - and there’s no way someone like Christian is this interested in a few disappeared people in a backwater that (and he can’t escape this itching suspicion)  _ Dany just so happens to live in.  _

“I know.” Dan sounds like he’s swallowing his words even as they come out, “I don’t like it. It’s partly why I came to you.”

Well that’s just fucking perfect. Dany grunts at him and goes back to looking for  _ anything  _ that could justify this shit. There’s a recent one - a few months back, a teenager disappearing that’s been helpfully sensationalised by the Greensboro News & Record to make special mentions of the fact he’d own a ouija board, listened to rock music and been “fascinated by the occult.” He supposes they have to be grateful it’s not a school shooting, grimly.

“Ok, what about this guy? He’s recent, probably not a life insurance case. Could’ve accidentally got into something realer than he was expecting.” Dany’s throwing Dan a freshly dug bone but he figures he’s not getting back to his life without doing  _ something  _ to satisfy whatever the Australian wants to find here.

Dan takes the clipping out of his hand, frowns at it. “Is this near here? I don’t know any of the place names.”

“Yeah, we went through it - Jamestown’s just over.” He keeps catching himself sounding… well, American. He hadn’t noticed it happening and there’s no way he’s actually managed to lose his  _ fucking  _ Russian accent but it feels monumentally awkward, speaking to Dan.

“Ok,” Dan goes back to frowning at the clipping, “Hey, he went to Lydia’s Bridge.”

“I guess it’s a start?” 

\-------

Not investigating in daylight is like, line one, page one, lesson one of Hunting For Dummies but there’s a very limited amount else to do in a small town on a Friday afternoon. Dany had briefly considered suggesting just getting smashed on local bourbon on his porch and letting Christian sort himself the fuck out but that was  _ definitely  _ an turn off down the dirt track to Feelings and he wasn’t quite ready to look in any of those abandoned barns, either.

He’s scuffing at the grass on the disused bridge, Dan crouching down next to him as though looking at the grass closer is going to give him anything other than hayfever. Or possibly hepatitis, judging from, the number of discarded whisky bottles hidden in the greenery. “Ok… so, local goth hangout.”

Dan snorts a laugh, “I fucking love Local Goths, same everywhere.” 

It’s true - and a joke they’ve had for years. Dany can’t help himself laughing, too - a thousand images of green hair, pentacle necklaces and shredded jeans that somehow crossed every continent, culture and circumstance they’ve ever been in suddenly filling his brain. He crouches down too, nudging Dan companionably.

They’ve changed so much - standing over him, Dany had noticed Dan had a peppering of grey hairs and he’s almost as tanned and definitely bigger than Dan now. The daylight’s making it kind of unavoidable that even if they’re sort of the same, they’re really not. Which is exactly the kind of distracting thought he shouldn’t be having on a hunt but being honest, that’s never exactly been his forte.

“What’s the deal then? They come to this bridge and - boo!” Dan does exaggerated jazz hands that are exactly unlike any spirit outside Phantom of the Opera.

“Dunno, hang on,” Dany gets out his phone, thanks the endless flat fields for pretty decent data coverage. “Ok, so… oh, it’s a phantom hitchhiker. We have a lot of those, here.”

“Mmm? What’s it do?” Dan stands up again, looking around as though anything’s likely to jump out at them. It’s instinctive and Dany studiously refuses to mirror him, despite the pull of his body to fall into old habits.

“Nothing, here. So supposedly this girl called Lydia crashed her car here - she haunts the highway, flags down cars with a lone driver, gets them to ‘take’ her to her mum’s house and upsets the old lady. Doesn’t say anything about killing anyone.”

“Really? Not very ghostly of her.” Dan’s laughing again, “Seriously, doesn’t even make them fall in love with her or scramble the electrics or some shit? You’ve got a load of friendly spooks out here, mate.”

Dany snorts and straightens up, the grass itching at his nose too annoying for just making a point, “Tight-knit community.”

“Is it nice? Here, I mean,” Dan’s looking at him with a very genuine - and annoyingly, slightly worried expression.

“It’s… yeah.” Dany doesn’t really want to elaborate. It’s nothing like F1? It’s still slightly weird being in the same place so much? He’s got really disturbingly into home decorating and spooning up with the same person every night? The neighbours have even given up giving them odd looks, even if they did keep referring to them as roommates. “I don’t know - a lot of Jesus, lot of farms, nice people mostly.”

“Do you ever hear from Carlos?” No, not this question. Absolutely not this question - Dan  _ should  _ know not to ask this question.

“We should check the highway.” He heads to the fucking obnoxious car without looking at Dan.

\-------

“Fucking hell what  _ is  _ this?” Dany had been to the Warped tour, last year. Quite enjoyed it, even if he had ended up slightly too smashed by 6pm and come home with a lot of band t-shirts he didn’t fully remember buying. But this is something else.

“Funeral for a Friend! It’s a classic, mate.” Classic Dan, at least. They’ve slightly re-not-normalised, from the thing at the bridge, although Dan’s been staring at the road more than singing, which suggests he’s doing an unhealthy amount of thinking.

Dany sighs at Google Maps as the singer helpfully belts out  _ So goodbye to you and your life, your new best friends  _ like a personal curse, “Ok, pull up here.” They’ve had to take an annoyingly circuitous route back to the highway they could see from the bridge and he doesn’t expect to find anything, frankly, as it veers back into view on a sharp bend.

Dan leaps out quickly, clearly eager for  _ anything  _ to investigate, cracking the boot before Dany’s even got both his feet out. By the time he gets to the rear of the car Dan’s got an armful of electronics and a shotgun that’s presumably full of salt. “Dude, it’s broad daylight .”

“And? Pretty sure it’s covered under the First Amendment,” Dan grins and hands him an EMF meter.

“Not  _ that,  _ the pirate radio station shit, “ Dan’s not listening to him, however and he supposes they might as well do it thoroughly.

They walk down to the bend, Dan scanning the highway like he’s on a trackwalk. There’s nothing but trees, fields and the bridge in sight and he has no idea what he’s hoping for, really - not like a phantom hitchhiker is likely to leave a thumb burnt into the grass or something. 

Maybe it’s just being back with Dan, having the worn leather of the EMF meter’s strap wrapped round his wrist but there is a ... _ something _ . There’s a sort of mirage-y shimmer to reality, around ghostly spots - something twitching about the fabric of the world. 

He hadn’t felt it on the bridge but as they round the apex of the corner, there’s a tingle - very slight, very subtle but there’s a cool chill, a dimming of noise. He hears Dan cock the shotgun, confirming it’s not just some odd nerves - or at least if it is, they’ve both got them.

“What’s it saying?” Dan has the interested, scrutineering look of a connoisseur - like a sommelier about to try a wine from a new region.

Dany flicks the EMF meter on, lets it spin for a few seconds as it gets a baseline. There’s nothing, at first, then a regular, small judder to the needle, like a faint heartbeat. He looks at Dan - he’s never seen anything like this before but Dan’s got five years of experience on him, seven counting the last two in “retirement.”

“Uhhh,” Dany recognises it as the sort of filler noise Dan makes when he thinks something’s about to happen and can’t stand an anticipatory silence. Dany scans the area, hearing rather than seeing the small flicks of the meter, feeling its internal workings tilting in his hands. For a second, it feels like the world is closing in, shutting off, intensifying like the g-force round a chicane before you hit the shock of flat-out acceleration. 

Then as suddenly as the flicker appeared, it’s gone - nothing more distinct than the usual background crackles. The world seems to re-expand, sunlight streaming back in along with the noise of cicadas and grassy hay smells.

He resists the urge to take a steadying breath, “Malfunction?”

Dan shoots him a deeply sarcastic look, “Sure mate, seen _ that  _ every time.”

Dany hums at him, gives the meter a habitual shake, like it’ll suddenly cough up an explanation. He’d been expecting nothing - this was so blatantly nonsense and it was barely the beginning of dusk, for fuck’s sake. Something he’d never seen before was… unnerving, not least because it felt like even more of a setup.

He sighs, shrugs at Dan, “Guess we’re coming back tonight then.”

Dan actually looks slightly excited, a sick thrill Dany remembers all too well, “Yeah, mate. Something here, for sure.”

“Two hours’ sleep? We can eat on the way back.” Dan nods far too enthusiastically for someone about to spend tonight at best driving in circles and at worst getting heavily beasted on by the undead. It sickens Dany to find himself grinning back - it’s all too easy to fall back into.

\------

He waits until Dan’s definitely asleep, quietly snoring behind him and takes Christian’s notebook out of his jeans pocket - lying down fully dressed, again. He does need sleep but he’s got a few hours on Dan, from the previous night and he knows he can push himself a little.

Flicking through the pages, he scans for anything that might give a stronger clue to what’s going on here. He’s got some very distinct fears about what Christian might be up to - he knew he’d got a bit too cosy over here, picking couch cushions and playing like he was likely to have a quiet life. 

Which he suspects most people in NASCAR don’t really think of themselves as having but was kind of where he’d found himself. This was all really knocking his enjoyment of beers on the porch, classic rock radio and some just-beginning-to-form, very vague future thoughts of taking his kids karting. Maybe buy a farm, live the proper American dream.

There’s a conspicuous lack of anything that points to why Christian’s in the US, beyond the notes about Lydia’s Bridge. Which is much too big a leap and Dan must have spotted it, must be part of why he’d got suspicious. The case notes from Europe are also almost sensationally bland, giving nothing away except that there’s  _ something  _ being withheld.

It’s really not reassuring, especially after the odd EMF at the highway. He’s almost never seen anything jump enough to make a reading in daylight, especially not in the open air. Closed off buildings and basements, sure and some old-as-shit or dark-as-fuck sites, where there’s too much to be contained. But that had been shapeless, formless EMF noise - high activity with no direction, nothing but agitation on the EVP.

Admitedly, they hadn’t tried recording but it had felt like the needle was loud enough to hear it. A weak heartbeat - something formerly human, then, at least. They were less tricky than some of the others, generally.

Unless it was a complicated one - some unquiet soul with an agenda or a specific mystery, wrapped up in family rifts and hurt. Ugh, he hated those ones. Although they tended to come from the sort of long-term thing he didn’t feel like North Carolina had had time to build up around some white girl crashing on the way to prom.

Which suddenly makes him think. He gets up as quietly and smoothly as he can, Dan still swiping behind himself at Dany’s retreating back. He mumbles “Gotta pee,” which entirely pacifies Dan (and is hardly unlikely, frankly, given how much coffee he’s necked) and pads over to where his phone’s charging. 

State records aren’t hard to find - Lydia’s Bridge might be a misnomer, some school rumor that got out of hand but there was  _ something  _ there, there should be records of deaths on the highway.

He’s still sitting, back against the obnoxious yellow wallpaper and phone in hand, scrolling through page after page, when the alarm goes off and wakes Dan. He always was better at the research.

\------

“So not a prom, huh?” Dan’s actually moderately turned down the music, still reassuringly singing  _ If I flooded out your house, do you think you’d make it out?  _

“Not a prom.” They’re heading south of the bridge, avoiding that stretch of highway, straight to the Carolina Biblical Gardens of Guilford cemetery, “Just a garbled story.”

Dany rubs his eyes, unlocks his phone to check the reference, “It’s a classic White Woman, not a phantom hitchhiker. Lynda, not Lydia - the bridge is a total misguide, it’s just sort of near where their house was. This was long enough ago that she fucking  _ should  _ have been at a prom, not waiting for her husband. Other than that, the same, shitty usual - he cheats, probably a bastard in different ways, she flips out, kills him and the kids, never rests easy again.”

It’s exactly the sort of thing Dany hates. He can empathise with it far too well - that desperation that you’re losing everything, the monstrous levels of grief that can justify extreme moments. Some poor teenage girl, shouldn’t have even been out of school - instead she’s meant to be bringing up kids on her own whilst some asshole fucks her about, all-too-probably abusive in other ways. And even then the thought of losing the fucker is unbearable. 

And now they’re gonna dig up her bones, salt and burn them so she can stop ripping out men’s hearts and maybe find something close to peace. He hopes, at least. The great NASCAR parallel in the sky.

“Ok, so - buried when?” He knows Dan’s hoping for at least the 1800s - nothing worse than a recent corpse. No such luck but mid-1900s isn’t too bad.

“1964, long while back. She’s not massively active, only one or two a decade; it’s so long ago the first few are on fucking horseback.” Dany huffs - he’s annoyed Christian has actually sent them after something real, almost wants to text home, definitely wants to  _ go  _ home and forget all this. White Women are no joke.

He can see Dan gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter, “So she’s picky?” 

“I’m not sure - there’s nothing really linking them, all ages, all marital statuses - one of them was ‘a persistent bachelor,’ even.” It’s fucking unnerving, the lack of pattern. They always have patterns, this one must just not be obvious.

He’d always assumed this was a Europe thing. White Women are so dangerous - manifestations of such literally mortal pain and worse than that, they’re  _ smart.  _ The ghostly existence doesn’t take the hurt away but it brings back the rational. 

He shudders, this is really non-ideal. Carlos had always been their special weapon with this sort of thing - so much calmer and more charming about it, less disturbed by the height of the emotions involved. And that wasn’t an option, which was a deeper hurt.

But then, Dany wasn’t quite the kid he’d been last time - before the whole F1 thing, even. He’d been likely to freak out if a woman who wasn’t dead and murderous got that close to him, back then. And frankly, Lynda Hatfield didn’t seem like one of the world’s deadliest.

Dan touches his knee, changing gears - a bit of comfort, maybe, wondering if Dany’s thinking about Carlos. When he looks across, though, Dan does not look comforting - he’s got a death grip on the steering wheel with the hand not on Dany’s leg but his eyes aren’t on the road, they’re on the rear view mirror and oh  _ fuck no,  _ surely not.

He realises the music has gone quiet - hidden by them talking but of course Dan would have noticed. The hair on the back of his neck is standing up and he really has to stop thinking about things that stop him feeling the telltale signs, the far-too-familiar indicators of something  _ else.  _

He forces himself not to check the mirror, to turn around and look at her, as his left hand goes to the iron knife sheathed by his ankle, the chill creeping over him. How long had she been there? He tries to replay everything he’s said in the last 10 minutes, any invocation or provocation - they’d been talking about her but she wasn’t a Bloody Mary. 

She’s sitting quietly in the backseat, looking like nothing more than a small, tired, pale girl - he can see where the prom idea comes from, so young. She’s clearly not one of the ones who needs you to stop, no invitation required. Her eyes are lowered, hands in her lap, pale hair falling down her shoulders. She’s got marks on her, down her bare arms, bruises and dirt over her skinny frame. She doesn’t even look the nineteen she was supposed to be, white dress standing out luridly against the purple seats.

Dan’s hand on his leg shifts like he’s trying to get Dany’s attention but Dany doesn’t want to take his eyes off her. If Dan’s got a poltergeist in his lap he’ll have to deal with it himself, he’s a big boy. “Hello, Lynda.”

The spirit doesn’t react. She looks extremely solid, which isn’t surprising - it’s always 50/50 about verbal with anything supernatural. He tries again, plays into the M.O. “Can we take you anywhere?”

She does react to that, somewhat more predictably, looks at him with big, dark eyes that make his heart skip with a cold, dreadful palpitation. Oh fuck, she is  _ powerful.  _ He can feel the freezing chill in his bones, wills Dan not to do anything stupid like pull over, not to do anything that might provoke her when they’re this unprepared and unarmed. 

When she speaks, it’s like knives into his chest - there’s a drag to it, like he’s being pulled into her hell and he realises he’s gripping the chair, white-knuckled.

“I don’t want to go.”

And then it’s all movement, for less than a second - the impossible speed of a ghost coming at him, no time to get the iron blade up before she’s suddenly gone and Dan’s accelerating and Dany can hear them both breathing harshly, the speakers coming back to life to wail  _ I’m not scared to die, I’m a little bit scared of what comes after. _

He can’t hold back an only borderline hysterical laugh.

\------

They pull over at a truckstop cafe - brightly lit and luminous is very much needed. By the time they’ve sat down with the obligatory burning hot, black coffee both of them have slightly returned to the kind of 

“We didn’t go near her road.” Dan sounds steady, reasonable, absolutely nothing like his usual self.

“Close - we had to cross it but not where she’s supposed to be.” Dan hums at him, adding three sachets of sweetener to his coffee in a way Dany suspects he’s not actually aware of because there really is only one way to make this shit more disgusting and that’s it. The minor irony of them both working for energy drinks companies and still reliant on truckstop swill is not lost on him.

“I don’t think that was the uh… the killer move. I think she’s warning us.” Dany feels a bit sick - this is off-the-charts weird. Which  _ of course it is  _ because he’s driving around hunting  _ fucking ghosts  _ with his former fucking teammate/best friend, as part of some scheme from his sadistic former boss/supernatural annihilation squad commander and yet it turns out there  _ were  _ more levels it could go to.

“No, mate.” Dan huffs out a sigh, finally looks up from his cup. “There was one like this before - in Germany. She walked up - no ride, no nothing and - and Max shot her, really riled her up. Christian was already burning her, thank fuck, don’t think we would’ve got out of that.

Dany tries not to feel smug that he handled that comparatively well. He rubs his eyes, the harsh strip lighting absolutely needed for this conversation but maybe less so for his visual cortex. He doesn’t want to ask if they always hunt in threes, now. “Ok, so. Burning still works.”

Dan looks uncomfortable, flashes an awkward smile at thin air slightly to Dany’s left, “She said she doesn’t want to go, right? I didn’t imagine that.”

Dany watches him carefully. This isn’t like Dan - he’d always subscribed pretty strongly to the ‘if it’s already dead or if it’s killing people or  _ especially  _ both, it’s got to go immediately’ school of thought. Which Dany broadly agreed with - saving people, driving things: the family business. 

But then there were the complications - where they were just killing people for being vampires, for instance, without any evidence they did anything malicious. Or violently expelling demons who were doing nothing other than what they were  _ made  _ for. You don’t kill a shark for taking down a seal, after all.

“She’s hurting, Dan - did you feel it?” He tries to keep his voice even but fails - even the memory of that boiling, raging pain is powerful.

“Yeah, I know. I know. I wish we had Carlos.” Dany shuts down his own brain before it can go there again. They’re on a hunt, it’s not safe. Nothing about this is safe.

He forces himself to relax against the plastic chair. “Look - we have to burn her. It’s 2am, we might not get another opportunity.” Saturday nights are a bit too close to Sunday mornings to be hanging around graveyards, early family visits too much of a possibility.

Dan exhales, gathering himself “Yeah. Yeah. Ok, let’s go.”

\------

The large, concrete monument reads very simply “Here are laid the ashes of those buried here 1950-1988, re-interred August 25th, 2001. 

Well, fuck.

They take an extremely long route back to Greensboro.

\-----

They sleep fitfully all day, slightly closer together than usual. Christian’s hotel room feels oppressive, already haunted by the bastard’s dead skin cells and hair, no doubt. 

By the time Dany hauls himself vertical and staggers to the bathroom to change his boxers and vaguely splash water on himself, he feels more tired than when they lay down, dawn creeping around the curtains. He’s got no idea what they do, now.

Dan is up when he gets back, tapping away at a laptop, “I can’t find anything that says what we do if she’s already burnt. Or what to do with a mass grave, if they somehow didn’t.”

Dany grunts an agreement - he’d already burnt through half his data allowance looking for the same thing when his brain refused to sleep past 11am. They’re going to have to come up with something but then, well, that’s why Dan turned up at his door.

“We’re going back to the highway, aren’t we?” Dan looks shattered, running fingers through two-days-unwashed hair they’re never going to tame. And yeah, it’s their only option really.

“Yes but,” Dany pauses to flash-think what a bad idea this is, even if it’s the best he’s got, “Only one of us in the car. Other one at the bridge.”

He’s been thinking and there’s something to the bridge - they hadn’t checked under it because what were they looking for, trolls? They’d been so close to it when the EMF had flickered, though. 

“Do you know where the children were buried? I can’t fucking understand this records system.” Dan’s hair is now almost standing on end, curls close to spiked from grease and incessant agitation.

That’s a very good point - he’d assumed the same place but not due to any mention. He budges Dan over on the bed, takes the laptop from his knees and tries to focus his eyes on the screen. 

Ten minutes later, he doesn’t have any answers. Maybe it just went without saying they were buried with their parents. They must have been buried. John Hatfield Jr and Joanna Hatfield, five and one years old respectively. 

“Do you… Do you think it was one of their heartbeats?” Weak, small and then gone. Ugh - Dan’s on the creepy fucking money, though.

“It’s fucking likely, isn’t it? Oh, gross. I hate it when it’s this fucked up.” Dany absentmindedly leans into Dan and for a second they sort of hug, the way they used to when all this shite got too much, when they were younger and Dan felt like a solid wall of reassurance around Dany’s skinny shoulders. No longer.

“Well I’m not risking death on an empty stomach.”

\------

A large plate of fried chicken and greens later, Dany is leaving Dan at the edge of the field across from the bridge, with a small arsenal.

“You’re sure about this?”

“No, obviously.” Dan is grinning, which is a terrible sign. “But I trust you, mate. We’ll come up with something.”

Sure. Sure they will. He’s learnt how to do that again, these last few years. 

At least without Dan in the car he gets an opportunity to flip the radio off MP3 and let it try to tune itself to something that might not be constant maudlin similes to his shitty little life. He switches on the EMF meter, rests it on the dash alongside the EVP recorder, just in case. Oh god, this is going to be so horrible. 

Paintwork aside, the Monte Carlo is a work of mechanical art - curving meanly through the winding roads like it was made for this. Which he supposes it was, given the modding. If it’s his last drive before death then he has plenty of regrets but it is at least a damned nice car to cruise towards a possible end in.

He’s keeping everything about Dan and Christian and all this firmly out of his head - he’s deliberately walking into a trap, he can’t be distracted. Which is extremely hard in Dan’s car, waiting for the radio to find something that isn’t shit to listen to.

As he joins the US-70, it hits a signal, crackly at first but he smiles, the riff irresistibly familiar, even if he’s not totally feeling  _ it’s been too long, I’m glad to be back.  _ The road stretches in front of him and he resists the urge to speed up - the point is to be slow, the point is to let her catch him. As horrifying as that is. 

He can feel it as he approaches the corner, the EMF meter flipping like it’s in a microwave, even the EVP crackling to life. It’s everything he can do not to look in the back seat, keep his eyes on the road and not the rear-view mirror. 

Dany doesn’t even have to look, in the end. She announces herself, the temperature dropping so much it turns his legs to lead, feet frozen against the pedals.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

He grits out “Why are you here?” through chattering teeth, chancing a glance in the rearview as the corner comes fully into sight and then nearly crashing the car into a tree as she’s suddenly on top of him, face close enough to his that it feels like he’ll blister from the cold.

“I don’t know.  _ I don’t know!”  _ Fuck - he can’t drive like this and  _ shit  _ suddenly her hands are on his chest, sharply scoring his skin even through the fabric of his hoodie. He feels himself involuntarily veer, blinded and a shout external to the car and  _ fuck  _ he better not have run Dan over, frantically scrambling for the brake.

There’s a moment of respite as Lynda looks around. She looks lost - hopelessly despairing and alone. It’s a look he horribly recognises, although more ghostly than he thinks he ever wore it.

Suddenly she’s gone and he draws a breath for the first time in half a minute, regrets it immediately when his chest lights up in pain and his vision whites out for a second. 

Or it doesn’t - they’re under the bridge, something happening around him. He can see Dan, illuminated by the headlights, shotgun in hand but not aimed, watching something to his right. Dany hurls himself painfully over to the passenger side, flings the door open and grabs at his knives - whatever it is, if it’s scared Lynda off it must be bad.  

It’s bright outside - not just the headlights and Lynda’s still there, glowing in the murky way spirits do. But in front of her there’s a smaller shape, holding something even smaller. Oh. Oh, fuck - they should have checked this first.

The EVP’s gone silent, radio long dead, the EMF reduced to that same small heartbeat, increasing this time. 

There’s a bright flash, a rush of darkness and he thinks he blacks out for a few seconds, buffetted by it, the knife in his left hand slacking in his grip. When he can see again, Dan’s in front of him, framed by the car’s lurid door.

“She just wanted her kids back.” Dan sounds a bit choked, “Just wanted another chance.”

_ Nice fucking metaphor, Christian.  _ Dany thinks, bitterly and tries to find a way of breathing that doesn’t hurt too much.

\-----

Dany tries to shut the door quietly, slipping into the hall and toeing his shoes off, grimacing a bit at the mud on them. He’d rather not bring anything from the weekend into the house.

Slipping into the kitchen, there are cookies on the side with a note  _ “Love you, gorgeous hunter. Come find something easier to catch? X”  _

He smirks - it’s typical and very sweet, given it’d be incredibly justified to be mad as fuck with him for going off with Dan again, after everything. He bites into one as he climbs the stairs, thoughts already turning to pulling back the sheets, pressing against warm skin.

He should wash the stink of graveyards and fucking Christian off himself first, though - even without seeing the man he felt like he’d spent the weekend in his back pocket somehow. He gets in the shower, turns it up hot even though it’s sweltering- they don’t really use the aircon, too used to countries without it - and lathers away all the stress and dirt and grime, dried blood chipping of his scratches and hot water soothing the bruises.

Once he’s confident he smells of nothing more sinister than Imperial Leather, he pads down the dark hallway to their bedroom, smiling at the thought of getting back to  _ this,  _ getting back to his life. And fucking some pain away, for definite.

He opens the door to find Carlos sitting up in bed, reading, his yellow eyes glowing in the lamplit room, “You are back - I missed you,  _ amado. _ ”

Dany hums, moving onto the bed and over Carlos’ lap, to kiss him, “I know - I’m sorry.”

“You had best make it up to me?” Carlos draws a finger down Dany’s neck, tracing his collarbone, the scratches across his chest. “I shouldn’t have let him take you, look at what they’ve done to you - my beautiful hunter.”

Dany smiles, kisses him again - he knows Carlos kind of gets off on him looking roughed up and manly. He’s going to fuck him so hard tonight - it’s been far too long apart. “Mmm - _te amo,_ _mi demonio.”_

Carlos laughs delightedly, like he’s still thrilled that Dany loves him. “We will have to burn the house down - I’m sorry,  _ cazador,  _ I know you love the bay window”

Dany nods - he knew from the second he’d realised Dan had entered the place, it’s not safe for them anywhere but this is much too close to not think that Christian could have been hunting Carlos again. “I know, I’m sorry too - you’re worth it.”

Carlos nods pleasedly, wriggles down to be completely beneath Dany, “We fuck first, of course - no point burning clean sheets.”

Dany presses him down into the bed, smiling against Carlos’ mouth. He really is the best hunter Dan knows, he’s just hoping they never find out  _ how  _ good.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> SOUNDTRACK:  
> Brand New - 'Jude Law And A Semester Abroad'  
> Funeral For A Friend - 'Streetcar'  
> Saves The Day - 'At Your Funeral'  
> Brand New - ‘Jesus Christ’  
> AC/DC - 'Back In Black' (too tempting, given Dany's said he likes AC/DC in the past)
> 
> Crib page for Lydia's Bridge, which really is actually just a phantom hitchhiker story: http://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/piedmont/lydia-phantom-hitchhiker.php  
> This is Christian’s hotel; http://jhadamsinn.com/


End file.
